I’ve owned and shot firearms since my age could be measured in single digits. I’ve actively engaged in firearms competition since I was in my teens. I’ve carried a lawfully concealed firearm on my person pretty much every day of my adult life.

I’ve been an NRA instructor since my 20s, and have personally taught a great many people—many of them women overcoming the horror of sexual assault—how to handle firearms safely and, if necessary, to effectively stop a deadly attack upon themselves or their family.

I’ve been an NRA Life Member for something like a couple of decades, and consider myself a Second Amendment absolutist. Not only do I think universal background checks would be a bad policy to adopt, I think all current background check systems are a laughable and useless infringement on the rights of the law abiding that have zero impact on denying access to guns by prohibited persons, and should be banned forthwith.

I think that anything other than Constitutional Carry, in every state, as well as the District of Columbia and every territory that answers to American sovereignty, is an inexcusable affront to the very fiber of the United States Constitution.

I also think that anybody engaged in the practice of “Open Carry in YOUR FACE!!!” (henceforth “OCIYF!”) is behaving like a jackass.

Actually, I think they’re worse than that, but I’m trying to keep this a family-friendly post.

What, you might ask, is “OCIYF!”? It’s an activity, usually orchestrated among multiple participants, to openly carry firearms for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention to themselves, usually by means of frightening a populace unfamiliar with the sight or practice of open carry. They typically to do this to increasing degrees until they compel action against their “OCIYF!” activities, at which point they express outrageously outraged outrage.

To augment the fear and reaction they induce, for example, they do not limit their open carry to a handgun in a secure holster—a sight every citizen is familiar with in their day-to-day lives, if only as worn by police officers. Oh, no, that won’t attract them the degree of attention they so desperately and petulantly seek.

Instead of taking a low-key, holstered-pistols-only approach that would serve more than adequately to assert their “right” to open carry, they instead escalate to the open carry of long guns that look to the low-information citizen precisely like the weapons with which we arm our soldiers to slay our Nation’s enemies, and that are precisely the weapons the gun control lobby fights most vigorously to turn public sentiment against. Good job, geniuses.

Ask the “OCIYF!” crowd what their goal is and they’ll tell you it’s to “normalize” public attitudes toward the open carry of long guns in the casual course of running day-to-day errands.

How utterly stupid. It has never been normal in any part of American history (outside of lawless frontier territories) for the citizenry to arm themselves with state-of-the-art long guns while simply running errands around town, much less while engaged in the momentary luxury of purchasing a cup of coffee or a mid-day meal.

The “OCIYF!” crowd, then, is not truly trying to return to a more enlightened gun-rights age of American history where the carry of long guns was unremarkable, for no such time ever existed. Rather they are attempting to bring on their fantasy vision of an American culture they’d like to see emerge. Ironically, a fantasy vision they make increasingly unlikely with every demonstration that frightens the populace whose electoral will ultimately determine whether the Second Amendment has teeth and is respected or instead becomes a kissing cousin of the Tenth.

Further, it’s not merely the “sheep” among American citizens that take alarm at the sight of one or several people swaggering into my local Starbucks or Chipotle, ARs dangling awkwardly from single-point “operator” lanyards, muzzles dancing recklessly at a floor covered in people’s feet and young children.

I’ve described my gun rights “cred.” If I’m in that Starbucks, and such an “OCIYF!” crowd strolls in, they’ve brightened themselves considerably on my personal “threat radar.” As is my practice any time such brightening occurs, my first move after having identified the threat is to assess imminence, followed by immediately vacating the area.

That, gentlemen, is the degree of alarm experienced, and evasion performed, by someone with a life around guns, more than a few rounds down the barrel of an AR, an effective personal defensive weapon on my hip, and many years of training and practice in its use.

What do you imagine goes through the mind of a young mother there with her small daughter, the office clerk from the nearby bank, the elderly couple sitting in the corner? None of these perfectly normal people are likely to have either the physical or mental capability of engaging such a perceived threat should it become realized. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that they were wondering if today was the day they were going to die.

Wining hearts and minds, eh?

Another rationale offered by the “OCIYF!” crew is that they are merely strengthening their Second Amendment rights through the exercise of those rights. Indeed, they’ll be happy to imply that it’s not they who are the problem, but rather that the problem lies with those of us who don’t engage in “OCIYF!” who “hide” our Second Amendment rights—after all, if we don’t use our gun rights, we’ll lose our gun rights.

Here’s some breaking news for you “OCIYF!” people:

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT TO CARRY A FIREARM INTO A PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESS.

None. Zero. Zilch. Zip.

The Second Amendment forbids the Federal government—and since McDonald also the individual state governments—from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Key word: government.

The Second Amendment does nothing whatever to constrain the rights of private property owners to determine for themselves whether to allow the carry of guns—concealed or open—on their property.

To put it even more simply, when you are on someone else’s property you are there as an invited guest. You stay at their pleasure, and under their rules, rules that only they are entitled to define. Make your host unhappy for any reason whatever and they are entirely within their rights to order you to leave. Refuse to comply and you’ve become a criminal guilty of trespass.

So anytime you hear the words “Second Amendment” or “gun rights” emerge as a rationale from an “OCIYF!” crew that has herded into a totally inoffensive Starbucks or Chipotle, you can be certain from the start that they have utterly no idea what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, having companies such as Starbucks and Chipotle make national headquarters-level pronouncements that the carrying of guns is no longer welcome on their properties is a wholly predictable outcome of “OCIYF!” activity.

Both Starbucks and Chipotle were initially entirely neutral on the “guns on our property,” issue, stating simply that their stores abided by the local laws where they were located. Really, they didn’t care, or they didn’t care enough to make any formal decisions about the matter. Abide by the law, live-and-let-live, and all was good.

I’ve personally been in scores of Starbucks and Chipotles while lawfully armed, and never had the slightest complaint from management, staff, or customers.

Why did I encounter so little resistance, and the “OCIYF!” crew so much? Because I didn’t constitute a substantive threat to the one thing both those businesses, indeed any business, does care a great deal about: their business. And, by extension, the willingness of their customers to come, buy, and come back again.

Forced to choose between the half-dozen “OCIYF!” gang banging their AR’s off the furniture every other Saturday on the one hand and the many thousands of regular non-threatening customers on the other, only a fool would believe they’d make any choice but the latter.

Incidentally, much the same applies to being out in public—think of it as the public’s “private property.” It’s certainly true that there are some places in the country where open carry in public might go unremarked. In such areas, the “host” is not averse to open carry, by definition.

Conversely, there are others where even though open carry is legal a group of non-uniformed men traipsing around in public with ARs is likely to result in a police response. It is precisely these types of areas that the “OCIYF!” group targets for their demonstrations, deliberately to encourage such a response. Just as the case when they crowd their armed selves into a Starbucks or Chipotle, they have the same misguided and childish goals when they do so in a public forum they know to be deeply troubled by such armed demonstrations.

I don’t expect there’s much chance of rationally changing the minds of the “OCIYF!” crowd. A person who hasn’t learned commonsense good manners and self-interest by the time they’re old enough to purchase firearms isn’t likely to do so thereafter.

I’m instead talking to all the other gun owners out there who, like me, have fought for more than a generation to turn back the tide from the dark days of the 1990s, to bring gun ownership and armed self-defense out of the shadows and back into the light of respectability, to bring lawful concealed carry from a handful of states to nearly the entire country, to make the use of firearms an easily defensible recreational activity for the entire family.

In other words, I’m talking to all of you non-“OCIYF!” folks who have spent much of your lives successfully normalizing guns again in American life.

If you’ve watched the news stories about Starbucks and Chipotle making corporate-level decisions to ban lawfully carried guns from their businesses, and had the vague sense that there was someone peeing in the pool—well, you were right.

Comments

I agree, Andrew. My commitment to the 2A is much in line with yours, and I come from a long family tradition of hunters and even gun manufacturers. The photo above appalled me – absolutely unnecessary and surely counterproductive.

I had briefly considered joining the O C Texas group. But after watching some of the antics, I quickly turned away. As for the OCing of long arms, don’t forget that in Texas only those and antiques are allowed to be open carried. So if these guys want to peacefully demonstrate and OC, that kind of narrows their choices. But for me, and a lot of others I’m sure, it boils down to: Don’t Be A D!ck! These people seem to misunderstand the whole damn concept behind that statement.

They’re not false flag. In fact the state organization has now disavowed them, having realized that they are sabotaging our rights. The Texas legislators who support gun rights are screaming at the top of their lungs – STOP IT NOW before you destroy everything we’ve worked so hard for.

These guys simply don’t care.

A lot of us down here in Texas are pretty peeved about their behavior. We’ve been trying to get campus carry passed for 10 years now, and this ain’t helpin’.

“As for the OCing of long arms, don’t forget that in Texas only those and antiques are allowed to be open carried. So if these guys want to peacefully demonstrate and OC, that kind of narrows their choices.”

This. That being said, I completely agree with the spirit of this op-ed. These people are idiots.

I remember that from an anti-drunk driving campaign once.
See Dick drink.
See Dick drive
See Dick crash
Don’t be a Dick
Don’t drink and drive.
(There’s even a t-shirt available if you google the phrase)

I see nothing wrong with what they are doing. In the picture anyway. Provocative? Maybe. But I am okay with that. Not helpful to the low-info crowd? Maybe. So what? I don’t think it is necessary to cater to that demo. I love your posts but I think this is a little over the top. Remember, they are on OUR side.

I do. If those rifles are loaded (and I suspect they are) then they shouldn’t be handled unless in the immediate vicinity of a bad guy. You know anyone who OC’s a handgun and takes it out to pose for pictures with it?

I’d kick them off a gun range for such unsafe handling let alone a burrito shop.

No, they are not on MY side. I work to advance the acceptance of firearms in the broader community.

Their actions raise animosity to that acceptance–have you not seen the actual results of their actions?

“I don’t think it is necessary to cater to that demo [low info voters].”

Do you think the Second Amendment is magic, or that the 5-4 votes we’ve gotten in the Supreme Court would be there if we’d had a few more liberals on the court? And how do members of the Supreme Court get appointed? By the President with confirmation by the Senate. And who elects THEM? The same “demo” you so casually disparage.

In the end, it’s ALL politics, and in our body politic that means votes. You don’t stay relevant for long if the populace is against you, Constitution or no Constitution.

Of course, that’s just me. I tend to take an adult view of such things.

The most “In your face” activity I have ever seen is homosexuals having anal sex openly and provocatively in very busy public areas of San Francisco, and that started over thirty years ago in the wake of the Harvey Milk/Mayor Moscone assassinations. I lived there at the time. I saw much of it.

Now there are few states left that don’t allow homosexual “marriage”. So it’s difficult to predict where any kind of “in your face” behavior will take us.

You said, “To put it even more simply, when you are on someone else’s property you are there as an invited guest. You stay at their pleasure, and under their rules, rules that only they are entitled to define. Make your host unhappy for any reason whatever and they are entirely within their rights to order you to leave. Refuse to comply and you’ve become a criminal guilty of trespass.”

So, anybody who owns a business can forbid any ethnicity from entering or direct them to leave? They won’t be sued for discrimination? The owner gets to make all the rules? That’s good news.

I agree with you as a practical matter ONLY because these people doing this are making asses of themselves and trying to get attention. In theory, I agree with what they PURPORT is their reason.

So if I follow the gist of what you’re saying, it’s that the butt-pumpers in SF back in the day were on the vanguard of changing public opinion by making people uncomfortable. Make people face something they’re uncomfortable with enough times and eventually they become tolerant of it. It’s a simple and well supported theory of basic human psychology.

I think the open-carry-in-your-face crowd is doing something very similar here. I would personally never do it… I agree they look like jackasses. Much like two homos pounding each other in the arse in public.

But if the long term goal is to “win the hearts and minds of the public”, how else do we combat the constant, blatant attempts by the prog drone army that controls our media and education systems to indoctrinate the populace to fear weapons?

Perhaps this approach is one of many that serves as a means of fighting back against the brainwashing.

I find this view utterly frustrating. What if you were sitting in said Chipoltle and the first of said guys walks through the front door. YOU have seconds to make a decision about that guys intentions. What decision would you make if you didn’t already know the outcome.

You are making the same mistake that the so called low info voters make. You assume that you could know the intentions of person behind the gun at the time that they make your way in your life, just like that screaching Trayvon crowd never even thought that young Trayvon might have been armed.

IF you are so sure of your views I highly suggest that you take a force on force class. You will be in for a very rude awakening.

First of all Andrew never said he made a decision he basically said they went from green to yellow on his personal threat assessment, which is just intelligent, he never said they were a threat but they do bear more watching.

As far as the “see one of them coming through the door”, well I will tell you that if he had the rifle slung then yea, I am gonna pay real good attention to him and get away from the area as soon as I can, because I can’t think of a single credible or sane reason to carry a long gun out to dinner on my shoulder in a civilian world.

Now if he comes through the door with the long arm to his shoulder, well that means spilled coffee, lateral movement to cover, and a double tap center mass.

I don’t have a problem with the OC guys having a demonstration and standing around with their rifles and signs in support of the 2nd amendment, but when the demonstration is over, put the long guns up and go eat. The baby back ribs aren’t impressed by your AR-15.

Why go to a restaurant anyway? Would you just walk into a friends house with an AR on your shoulder? If you would I would suggest it not be mine unless you have asked me first. These are just the militant types of the pro-gun crowd and they have about the same effect the militant arm of most political beliefs have, they hurt the cause. Because folks don’t look at them as pro-gun hero’s, they look at them as the buttheads liberals can now point to and use as proof that we are all crazy.

“IF you are so sure of your views I highly suggest that you take a force on force class. You will be in for a very rude awakening.”

Haha, take one, yeah, I’d love to, it’s been a few years. Back then, however, I helped teach them.

One of the benefits of being an instructor at the Sig Sauer Academy is the breadth of classes I get to participate in, including many normally restricted to LEO and military students. One of the many ways the Sig Academy is forward thinking compared to their competitors is to actively build lawful use of force conditions into some of their classes.

I’ve taken part in enough Simunitions classes to have dedicated clothing and a cup for the sessions (and, yes, it’s a LOT of clothing, and yes the cup is VERY important).

Pro-tip: Before engaging in a Simunitions class, practice your immediate action drills. That stuff is somewhat less reliable, in terms of mechanical function, that ball ammo.

Walking into a business carrying visible weapons is a fool’s errand. Have none of these people ever seen, real or Hollywood version, a take-over robbery? And do they think they will not find themselves in the presence of lawful CCW-types? It’s Texas for crissakes.

Having a libation with some friends late one evening in a rundown bar in an industrial area, which also happened to be the watering hole for the local constabulary, two fellows wearing ankle-length top coats walk in, stop and survey the crowd, exchange nods and one walks directly into the hall to the men’s room while the other stands slightly to the side of the door. They did not go unnoticed from first entry and the room went quiet… the only sound was a series of “snapping” sounds and the slight scraping of chair legs on the floor. Half the crowd zeroed in on the guy at the door, the others watched the hallway. When the guy emerged from the hall it became evident to both that they were on stage… they quietly went out the way they came in.

The point is, had a weapon been displayed by either, the event would have had a loud and unhappy ending.

These OCIYF! fools are risking such an ending. And that would have done nothing to advance either lawful open carry or lawful CCW. They are their own worst enemy.

Look at these two freaks apparently guarding the condiments: http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=48192
I mean, LOOK at them. I’m no low info voter, but I can see why no family stopping in for a feed on their way home from the kids’ swim team practice or whatever would want to deal with that mess if they didn’t have to.

No, they are not. They’re pissing off the Texas legislature, and when those boys get pissed off you don’t get an expansion of your rights. The Dems down here are jumping for joy and begging the OCIYF crowd to keep it up.

I agree. If one -must- protest (rather than working politically behind the scenes), the way to do it is to stick to public spaces, with signs so onlookers understand exactly what is going on and forewarning the authorities who might get calls. Leave private businesses out of it.

As you note, there was never a “normal” for OC of long guns, even on the frontier it was only justified by necessity.

The way to not scare people is to make it clear that “rifle OC” is not your goal, all you want is to be able to tuck in your shirt behind your pistol without worrying about going to jail. The uncaring middle aren’t likely to find that outcome threatening, particularly if it is pointed out that is the law in most states already with no problems.

If these idiots feel the only way to make their point is to OC a long gun, they could at least carry non-threatening long guns (they have their CC pistol on them for actual defense, right?) Saying you’d “rather be carrying a pistol” while carrying grand-dad’s squirrel gun sends the same message as an AR but without the baggage.

The only reason given for their OC is to “raise awareness.” Since the only meaningful -outcomes- from their slapstick attempts to do so have been negative, the rational response is to stop doing it. Since they don’t stop, they are clearly not being rational.

They are being petulent children who want things their way on their terms and are willing to destroy all our gains in the attempt. They then defend themselves by claiming that questioning their tactics is akin to being anti-gun. Which is also nonsense. The proof is in the pudding and their pudding went bad a long time ago.

Are you suggesting that having major retailers like Starbucks and Chipotle move from a “carry if polite and no trouble” position to a “no guns in our stores” position is a positive move for gun owners? Will you be every happier as ever more such places ban the lawful carry of firearms?

Or are you suggesting that the media is merely fabricating those positions, and that in fact Starbucks and Chipotle have not made those decisions? Does that seem realistic to you?

If neither of those is true, on what basis do you dispute the claim that the outcomes of “OCIYF!” to date have been negative?

Andrew, my understanding is that Chipotle is walking a tightrope here and while it has “politely asked” in a corporate PR statement that people behave, what’s required to legally ban guns from private establishments is a sign in the window saying guns are not permitted in that establishment. Chipotle is not taking that step.

Until that step is taken, Chipotle isn’t “stopping” people from carrying on their premises, and if it’s concealed carry and no one’s the wiser then that’s presumably just fine, but it seems to be a final plea for decent and reasonable behavior to save it the anguish of making a formal ban and becoming the lightning rod it does not seek to be…

The point is, why engage in behavior that causes them to make a statement at all?

Perception is everything in politics and the anti-gun crowd can use this to sway people, by saying; “Look, just look, why do they need rifles for dinner?”

Also, having loaded long guns in a crowded eating establishment, where they can be bumped jostled and banged around is not good gun safety. Also, all it will take is one, just one, of these little outings actually resulting in a weapons discharge and it will start the next great wave of “lets man the scary looking guns”. Even if no one is injured, we may lose the next time that happens.

The crazies that shoot up places give the anti-gun folks enough ammo, we don’t need to help them along.

Depending on state/city, those signs may or may not have any weight of law behind them. In many cases, such as here in Florida, all they can do is ask you to leave, and have you arrested for trespassing if you don’t.

Texas is a conceal only state and as such the only types of firearms that can be displayed openly are long guns. I am sure that this is for the hunters that are either going out or coming in to allow them to get a coffee or such and not have to leave their guns vulnerable in a vehicle. I also believe that in Texas if you are displaying a long gun you must have the magazine removed which in looking at the picture at least one of the people is not.

All of that said how do I know what your intentions are when you walk into a restaurant in an urban area magazined up, with finger on the trigger of your long gun, especially in that critical moment when you first enter said restaurant? I think that because the actual number for people that are conceal carrying at any particular location is so low, is the only reason that this type of thing hasn’t been an utter disaster.

Imagine I see said dude with open AR, full mag walking to the door of the place that I am eating. My hand is on my gun and I am in the process of unholstering, scanning for concealment and cover. My adrenaline is up. I am not trying to draw attention to myself, and I am definitely not trying to get the dude’s attention … but. What if … he sees me doing this maybe he doesn’t see my gun but he sees me acting what must appear to be suspicious he turns because he is now focused on me.

I will leave the rest to the reader, but I have to agree with Andrew, how can this be viewed as anything other than a threat for at least the first 30 seconds when the open carrier walks through the door.

I like the fact that Texas forces conceal, because in an urban environment it allows me to carry to protect myself and it reduces anxiety to those that don’t know or don’t understand guns. And most importantly it protects me and other CCW’s from each other.

Ok, and that has what to do with the point of this article? Andrew has already said if they want to have them in a demonstration with signs and stuff, great for them. But that is not what they are doing, they are causing a scene and scaring people, which doesn’t help us at all.

“Andrew has already said if they want to have them in a demonstration with signs and stuff, great for them.”

Actually, I didn’t say that, but just because I overlooked it.

I have no problems with such carefully orchestrated events, especially if done in cooperation with law enforcement, so that there is little or no risk of frightening the public and being perceived as reckless.

Organized, responsible, non-threatening, cooperative with law enforcement–that sounds good to me.

In their defense (and this is a very thin defense), open carry of handguns is illegal in their state.

That said, if you absolutely must carry a long gun to a “demonstration,” there’s definitely a right way and – more to the point – a wrong way to do it.

Everyone’s familiar with the pictures of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carrying M-4s on single-point slings across the front of their bodies. That is precisely the wrong weapon and carry method for these demonstrations. The people who do that look like their literally expecting a war.

Some ideas that have popped up in the many forums discussing these events, and a few additions from my own head (and I’m not going to say which are which):
- Carry all long guns on slings across the back. “Ready” position looks like your expecting (or looking to make) trouble. And absolutely, positively, no fingering the triggers. No exceptions.
- Carry frontier-era firearms (muskets, lever-action rifles, etc.) instead of modern weapons. It’s Texas, which has a shall-we-say colorful and well-known history, and a Winchester 94 is significantly less “scary” to the uninformed public than an AR-15.
- Stage an “empty holster” protest/demonstration instead of an open-carry event, in the (highly successful) style of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Empty holsters highlight the problem, without bringing any guns at all.
- Meet in a public area, and not in a business that may or may not support your group.
- If you must go into a business, be as normal as possible: get in, get your stuff done, and get out. If possible, limit how many of your people enter at once; twos and threes are less intimidating than 10s and 12s. Clean up after yourselves. No pictures, no Facebook posts, no bringing excess attention to yourselves – you’ll get enough as it is.
- Post a thank-you on your group’s social media afterward, but don’t name specific businesses. Make it a generic, but sincere, “Thank you to all the businesses that put up with us” and leave it at that – make it appear that you were a burden on them, but they acted graciously despite it.
- If the business openly and explicitly supports you – and only if they do – then thank them profusely.
- Above all, leave a favorable impression. Don’t just be polite; be exceedingly so. Don’t just be nice; be nice to a fault.

As a particularly snarky gun-blogger puts it (and I’m paraphrasing): “There’s a difference between carrying a gun and carrying a gun at people.” Make sure you’re not doing the latter.

I would add: take a bath, comb your hair, and put on clean, tidy clothing.

The photo that Amy posted above shows this big slob. Yeah, he’s fat, but that’s not his problem with his appearance. He looks like an unwashed slob with no personal standards. And the girl looks like some young dumb chick trying to look like a badass because she’s seen too many movies and TV shows in which some woman is a super-heroine/super-cop, whatever.

If they were clean, trim, and carrying themselves with dignity they might get more support.

If you’re carrying a “period” firearm, you get bonus points if you’re wearing period costumes–Colonial/Revolutionary War for muskets, Civil War/Frontier for lever action, or Formal Business Attire if you insist on carrying an AR-15. Heck, I suspect that you could even mix and match (a Colonial with an AR-15 accompanying a Businessman with a musket, for example) and get away with making OC rifle a little less alarming.

I remember a news article a few weeks ago in Utah, where someone got in the news for OC’ing a rifle in a mall. He didn’t look too bad, but the tee shirt he was wearing was orange with some sort of raptor on it (if I recall correctly)–basically, borderline “I’m a scary person” outfit. I have often wondered what the reaction would have been, hand the guy been wearing a suit and tie at the time…

I think all these points can be summed up as three things to remember: look extra-nice, act extra-nice, and be as non-threatening as possible. And above all, do not unshoulder a rifle unless there’s an imminent threat to life and limb!

(There are times and places to pose with weapons, but a restaurant is not the place, unless you have explicit permission from the manager to do so. Again, act extra-nice!)

@Branca 100% agree with you. Defend the 2nd Amendment, but don’t be an in your face ass about it. To me, the in your face attitude smacks of grave immaturity. Like a firearm, a pneumatic hammer is a tool, but we don’t lug pneumatic hammers into restaurants with us. Dentists don’t bring their drills to display in the open, nor painters their rollers and spray guns.

Decades ago, the Army taught me about shooting and the personal discipline required when carrying a firearm. Lessons very well taken. I get nervous when Jim Bob or Bubba use their firearms in an undisciplined way. I get even more worried when Special Forces wannabes get all shiny faced talking about their firearms and survival gear, and what they are going to do when the apocalypse comes.

In a way, these clowns are the result of all the patient hard work and smart tactical choices of the past few decades.

There is a whole generation who don’t know how recent general acceptance of shall-issue is, and how hard we had to work in the early years to steadily improve the first carry laws to get to the new “status quo” for permitting and to where Alaska Carry is in place in 5 states to one degree or another and gaining ground on the ballot in multiple states.

Some of these folks take it for granted, and/or think they should have it all “right now” if their state is lagging behind, like FL and TX on OC. They ignore the hard work and are looking for shortcuts.

Depends on the style of the parade, gay activists have differing opinions if the garish sexually-charged parades and festivals helped or hindered the push for gay marriage and equal rights.

Like -pistol- OC, the goal was to “normalize” innocent and harmless behavior. The way to do that is to blend in with other people, look and act like someone they want to have as a neighbor, not assert your “right” to be a self-centered dick in public or on other people’s property as if it shouldn’t have consequences.

Actually, it was a push for selective rights. There is no objective argument to normalize homosexual behavior, but not other dysfunctional behaviors. Homosexual behavior, as other dysfunctional behaviors, has no redeeming value to society or humanity. It is merely a personally favored behavior, which is antithetical to evolutionary fitness.

“It worked for homosexual couplets. It also worked for pro-abortion/murder. People love a parade.”

No, “gay pride parades” did NOT normalize homosexuals. Having spent considerable time in both San Francisco and Boston (nee Provincetown) I’ve seen my fair share of “gay pride parades.” They are almost invariably smart enough to conduct the most intense of them in communities that already accept even extremely externalized gay behavior.

(As an aside, I’ve never had other than an awesome time at any of those events, but that’s another issue.)

You know what “normalized” homosexuality? It was television. Show after show after show, where homosexuals were portrayed as hard-working, responsible, mature, active participants in healthy family/business relationships.

Not as freaks waving their freaks around.

To see the most recent example, just look at the hugely successful television show “Modern Family,” where fully a third of the adult cast are homosexuals–and, as it happens, portrayed as people I’d very much like as neighbors. Quite, hard working, responsible, and zany enough to invite to a BBQ and share in the fun.

“Gay Pride Parades” never made it as a regular feature on main stream TV for a very good reason–it would have LOST, not GAINED sympathy for the homosexual community. And THEY were smart enough to know it.

I actually do not oppose homosexual individuals or couplets. They possess individual dignity as does every other human being. Their time, resources, and behavior are their own. It is, however, objectionable that they attempt to represent a dysfunctional behavior as normal, which has required seemingly rational individuals to strain with unprincipled arguments, including emotional appeals, in an effort to be selectively inclusive of couplets. This selective exclusion has, once again, created a moral hazard.

As for normalization, that was forced by some prejudiced judges, notably in California, and Democrat opportunists. As well as pro-abortion/murder heterosexuals who conspire to defend their “choice”. There is no objective principle that they will not manage to selectively reject. In fact, they have a history of creating moral hazards, which they are either unwilling or incapable of addressing.

I am close to being a Second Amendment absolutist, but I do not seen these Open Carry clowns as helping the cause. The “cause” is not frightening little old ladies, soccer moms, Joe Six-Pack, or the counter-girls at coffee shps. The cause is, to me, Constitutional Carry, on-campus carry, Post Office carry (why should I have to disarm to get my mail from my post office box? I can’t even legally carry a concealed [or exposed] pistol onto the damn parking lot of the Post Office), restaurant and bar carry, etc.

Do these demonstrations help or hurt? It seems clear that they hurt our public image. And image is eveything!

I support the right of these clowns to carry, I just wish they would use their brains first to decide if it is a good idea or not.

I don’t know the answer to this one. In states where open carry of handguns is legal, I think that would be far better. But, as pointed out in the comments, open carry in TX is limited to long guns. So, what do you do there to demonstrate for open carry? Carry signs showing handguns?

I do think that seeing enough civilian open carry of handguns desensitizes you to such. It becomes hum, drum, common place. You quickly almost quick noticing them. Like with the police – by now, most of us don’t startle in the presence of visibly armed police. I think that most people pretty quickly get that way when you see people at the gas station pumping gas, or shopping in the grocery store, openly carrying. You look to see what they are carrying, and if it isn’t interesting (e.g. a Glock, etc.), then you don’t look again. And, after awhile, with handguns staying in holsters, and being mostly ignored by everyone, the novelty wears off, and it is considered normal, and not abnormal. I think that is the real goal of many open carry proponents.

In a country of 320,000,000 or so people, groups like these OCIYF! folks would be conspicuous only in their absence. Christians have the Westboro Baptist Church, who are hardly representative, atheists have a tiny but pugnacious activist fringe, and lawyers have briefcases. Seems every social, political, or cultural group of any size eventually develops a fringe wing.

Keep doing what these OCIYF! guys are doing and sooner or later something bad will happen. Sooner or later that guy in the back booth happens to be struggling with voices and paranoia. Sooner or later they enter and there’s already some immature, actual gun ‘nut’ who misinterprets their presence and purpose. One time it might look like a gang robbery in progress to the armed off-duty cop eating lunch with his mother and his two kids. So many variables, inevitably it will go wrong, get ugly.

There are many, many proper uses for firearms, but I’m thinking that using them as props for an awareness raising demonstration is not one of them. Legal? Yes. Smart? Oh, hell no. Coroner’s report waiting to happen.

It’s only a matter of time before one of those clowns gets careless and walks into a business with his firearm slung across his shoulder and a concealed carry holder takes them out assessing them to be a viable threat.

Andrew, these OCIYF clowns think they are impressing someone. I hate to tell them, we Texans, who really, really, REALLY support the 2nd Amendment, think they are just a bunch of show-offs looking for attention and a few minutes on the local news.

The leader of the pack of fools is U.S. Army (or at least he was) and has initiated a number of encounters including with the police, to garner attention.

Almost every person I am friends with have a “concealed” carry license. And I am allowed to carry in my vehicle with a strong “castle” doctrine being the law in Texas. But these clowns make the anti-self protection crown (anti-fire arms crowd) go nuts and just gives them the ammunition (no pun intended) to demand that Texas abolish our existing gun laws allowing us to carry.

Three centuries ago in Seattle at the second Tea Party movement rally, I photoed an obvious leftist troll, government or not, videoing me while I was photographing the crowd and Kelli Carender. He was open carrying a 1911 type holstered. West Lake Park, police looking directly at him. WA is an open carry state, technically, but ill-advised to do so in Western WA. I was lawfully CC, still am. My photo shows him smirking at me. This is why I queried above about these OC fanatics being anti-gunners. Not jerks, actual 2nd A enemies. Cheka called such operations “active measures.” From that we get the word “activist.”

I have one question for these folks, if they are so “pro-open” carry then why do they need a special event? Why aren’t they carrying their AR’s full time? The answer is because they know it isn’t an acceptable behavior and they are just pulling a stunt.

Produce the shock and awe by the stimulus of viewing “scary” guns but the paired anticipated outcome never occurs (gun-phobics fear the worst, as in robbery or someone being accidentally shot)

With enough trials, the subjects should be conditioned to the idea that guns are fairly safe in legal ownership situations.

Sounds great in theory but it is a bit of a gamble that doesn’t really need to be made. Also, if I’m crazy enough to run one of these demos, I’m double checking that EVERY gun is not loaded before entering.

Actually, it’s called flooding. Take someone who is scared of spiders and stick them in a room full of spiders. The idea is to completely break down their fear via unrelenting exposure.

“Flooding is a psychotherapeutic method for overcoming phobias. This is a faster (yet less efficient and more traumatic) method of ridding fears when compared with systematic desensitization. In order to demonstrate the irrationality of the fear, a psychologist would put a person in a situation where they would face their phobia at its worst. Under controlled conditions and using psychologically-proven relaxation techniques, the subject attempts to replace their fear with relaxation. The experience can often be traumatic for a person, but may be necessary if the phobia is causing them significant life disturbances. The advantage to flooding is that it is quick and usually effective. There is, however, a possibility that a fear may spontaneously recur. This can be made less likely with systematic desensitization, another form of a classical condition procedure for the elimination of phobias.”

Not something amateur Texas hillbillies should be inflicting on a business or individuals for that matter. Because when the fear spontaneously recurs, anything from a tragedy to new repessive laws will be passed.

I would propose that the requirements made in a comment above (which basically boils down to dress nice, be nice, and don’t be threatening) would actually be the way to go, if OC activists wanted to try “systemic desensitization”. Get people used to the idea of nice guys carrying antique varmint guns, and gradually move up to more modern fare…

If we did that, the response to the hysterical “OMG!!!11!!!1 Those Gun Nutz haz guns!!!! In public, even!!!!!” from anti-gun organizations would be, “So? Those are the nicest guys I know! What’s your problem?”

But it would take a lot of niceness, and a lot of patience, to get there! (So far, of course, OCIYF types have had a bit of difficulty with both…)

Tell that to the open carriers in Wisconsin who stirred the shit in places like Madison and Milwaukee. Those people who “did more harm than good” celebrated victory in getting concealed carry legalized a couple years later.

These “activists” do more harm than good. I’m a CHL holder and would have no problem with more widespread open carry of holstered handguns. On the other hand, from a distance you can’t easily tell if you’re looking at activists or people about to go on a shooting spree, and that’s the kind of information if you get wrong you end up with one in the grape. Stupid goal of stupid activists hurting our movement.

Zombie has been documenting similar behavior in San Francisco for years, now. In San Francisco, people love to demonstrate, for any cause ….nekkid.

The argument that these people are there for any given cause is simply unconvincing: they are there to upset other people. I believe the same is true of the OCIYF characters. They are not asserting any legitimate right. If they were sincerely asserting a legitimate right, they would choose a manner at least somewhat likely to persuade others to their cause. Instead, they engage in acts designed to frighten and offend others.

After reading your post I think my mind is changed on OC of longarms. However, I’d like to start OCing my pistol.

I’ve recently moved to an OC state. I don’t want to do it as a statement. I have serious physical issues that make it hard for me to make fast motions to my concealed if I were to need it. OCing would at least let me carry it in a drop holster which is more readily available to me and less likely to put me at a disadvantage.

I’d hate to think that simply by OCing I’m disrupting people. I certainly don’t want to be a provocateur. But after reading your article I cannot help to feel I’m being an ass by wanting to OC in the first place.

I guess my point is to ask you when you feel its legitimate to open carry and where and what? I assume this might be in your book that I haven’t had a chance to read yet.

If you want to open carry, do so. Branca and those like him are, in my opinion, elitists of the firearms community. You’ll notice he referred to open carry as a “right”…specifically with the quotes, after calling himself a 2A absolutist. There is a sneering disgust towards open carriers, particularly by those who like to boast of their experience in training programs. This is largely because those training programs are filled with ex-military and law enforcement who tend to look down upon those who aren’t “professionally trained”, as if firearms safety and handling are things that can only be learned in approved classes and programs. It’s a mildly statist view that is far too common, unfortunately.

“There is a sneering disgust towards open carriers, particularly by those who like to boast of their experience in training programs.”

Where did I ever suggest anything wrong with open carry, per se?

I’m a strong proponent of open carry as public policy. I think government constraint on open carry is bad public policy and unconstitutional.

All of that has NOTHING at all to do with what my post was about, which was “OCIYF!” –the abusive use of open carry on public property for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and attention whoring, and at the inevitable cost gun owners not needing such ego support.

@MadisonConservative “… particularly by those who like to boast of their experience in training programs. This is largely because those training programs are filled with ex-military and law enforcement who tend to look down upon those who aren’t “professionally trained”, as if firearms safety and handling are things that can only be learned in approved classes and programs. It’s a mildly statist view that is far too common, unfortunately.”

So you had a bad experience in one of these programs? When I took my force on force training class it was the most humiliating thing that I have EVER done! And because I wanted to be safer with my gun, I am now an elitist and a statist? Don’t forget it was the elitist’s (lawyers and judges) that have brought about the absolute revolution in gun rights, not a bunch of funktards who walked into an urban restaurant like they were prepared for a firefight.

“After reading your post I think my mind is changed on OC of longarms. However, I’d like to start OCing my pistol.”

I have no problem with the OC of ANY firearm–IN THE PROPER TIME AND PLACE.

When it’s done for the explicit purpose to shock and alarm people–and that IS the explicit purpose of OCIYF!–it can only do damage to the decades-long effort we’ve engaged in to gain positive public perception to the private ownership of arms and CCW.

Spiff, ask yourself this, what is the purpose of you carrying the gun that you have chosen? Why would you choose to carry a long gun in an urban environment, even if you could conceal the damn thing? And if you did carry said long gun wouldn’t you even stop to consider that there are others with guns too? So how would you open carry a long gun, would you carry it in a front facing single point sling with a magazine in, a bullet in the chamber and the safety off? I seriously doubt if you did this that you thought for one second the repercussions of your actions, which means that you are not a safe person, and should seriously wait to own a gun.

Like everything there is a right and a wrong way to do things, but for some they have to learn the hard way to understand that it is the wrong way.

If you can open carry, and that is your only choice then be smart about it. Understand what weapon and gear are appropriate, understand some of the situations that you might face, understand the law. and buy your gear and train accordingly.

Andrew hasn’t posted the photo floating around on different blogs of the two douche’s in Chipotle’s, one with his AR 15 or SKS(sorry, I don’t know them exactly on sight)hanging from a lanyard around his neck, and the other with his pointing up, but with his finger on the trigger. Next to the condiment stand. Both look like 100% jerks, especially the 300 pounder in a giant t-shirt, shorts and untied athletic shoes.

From reading other blogs addressing this story, the pres. of this nutgroup has been arrested numerous times, of his own purposeful device.

He has engaged one of the blog contributors to Victorygirls, calling her a liar and getting very personal about it, after she posted the photos and the story.Makes for some interesting reading, the guy is a nutjob.

The best thing we can all do is denounce these idiots loud and clear and keep at it.

This is SO not the picture I want to come to peoples’ minds when I try to get through to them that most people who carry are just ordinary everyday citizens like you and me. These guys look like every Leftist’s caricature of the “typical” American gun owner, it’s ridiculous. Even I want to make fun of them.

(I’m thinking maybe I should have posted “TRIGGER WARNING” (no pun intended) on that link, for those who haven’t had lunch yet..)

To be clear to the “ladies”, guns are not banned at chipotle. Customers were asked not to bring guns and during a press release, the spokesperson would not comment on whether guns were banned at chipotle.

Trying to equate OC activism with the “success” of the LGBT lobby is worthless for this discussion. The LGBT lobby has failed to sway very many common citizens. Whenever a state constitutional amendment or proposition, limiting or banning homosexual marriage, comes up on ballots, it is overwhelmingly passed. It is only liberal media, judges and legislators who succumb to the LGBT lobby.

What people do not understand about OC is that it is practiced very little, and almost never in developed areas. Even in states where OC is legal, it is seen about as much as Bigfoot. It is simply not socially acceptable, in most developed areas, and hasn’t been since the beginning of the 20th century.

Now, as the SCOTUS has not seen fit to rule that the 2nd Amendment means what it says, that no government may regulate the ownership and possession of weapons and firearms, this means that governments, in response to this type of activism, are free to place “reasonable restrictions” upon the ownership and possession of firearms. One must always beware of the law of unintended consequences.

It would have been perfectly reasonable for Chipotle to respond to the discomfort of some customers over open carry to ban OPEN CARRY in their restaurants, but that’s not what they did. They said they didn’t want concealed weapons either, turning their establishments into another publicly broadcast “defender free zone,” which is an invitation to strong arm robbery and mass murder. I do my best to avoid such zones, as much for ideological reasons for practical I admit, since my whole stupid state of California is pretty much a defender free zone. So while I am not “boycotting” Chipotle, I did send them an email that I now consider their restaurants to be unsafe, publicly announced “defender free zones” and will no longer be eating there (I did previously eat there with some regularity, despite the trash-can corrugated galvanized sheet-metal decor) until this overbroad anti-gun policy is amended to allow concealed carry.

Unless they put up signs, it’s just store policy and has no bearing whatsoever on legal concealed carry.
If they DO put up signs, it still has no bearing on legal concealed carry unless they’re in a jurisdiction where such signs actually hold force of law.

A no-concealed-guns policy has a BIG effect on concealed carry because people who carry concealed generally respect store policies. A person might carry against policy if competing providers are not available but there are always plenty of other places a person can eat.

Manners always matter, especially when trying to win people over to your point of view. They are a show of respect to those whom you wish to impress and prove that you appreciate being given their time and attention. People behaving the way Mr. Branca described demonstrate to me that they don’t really care what the public thinks of them and are simply doing it for their personal attention.

Mr. Branca,
I agree, pretty much. But…
(Andrew Branca): “What do you imagine goes through the mind of a young mother there with her small daughter, the office clerk from the nearby bank, the elderly couple sitting in the corner?”
A shrug, maybe, if people routinely carry long arms. Consider the three guys in plaid with their rifles against the wall, eating breakfast at 0500 in a rural café on the opening day of deer season.

(Andrew): “Instead of taking a low-key, holstered-pistols-only approach that would serve more than adequately to assert their ‘right’ to open carry, they instead escalate to the open carry of long guns that look to the low-information citizen precisely like the weapons with which we arm our soldiers to slay our Nation’s enemies, and that are precisely the weapons the gun control lobby fights most vigorously to turn public sentiment against.”
Three problems here: (1) long arms cannot be carried concealed, (2) some jurisdictions place more restrictions on handguns and concealed weapons than on long arms, so that fewer people have the right to carry concealed, and (3) the Second Amendment isn’t in the Constitution primarily so that Americans can hunt deer or protect their homes against burglars. As Eugene Volokh writes, it’s a tripwire. The American revolution began with colonial resistance against an attempt by their own government to disarm the colonists. We are supposed to be at least as well armed as the US Army.

“Consider the three guys in plaid with their rifles against the wall, eating breakfast at 0500 in a rural café on the opening day of deer season.”

Yes, why don’t we consider context.

What was the context for these OCIYF jerks carrying ARs into a Chipotle? Was it because they were preparing to go hunt, in a hunting region? Was it “deer season” in the vicinity of that Chipotle? No, it was not, and hunting was not their purpose. Their purpose was attention whoring, and I simply consider that irresponsible in the context of being armed.

“Three problems here: (1) long arms cannot be carried concealed, (2) some jurisdictions place more restrictions on handguns and concealed weapons than on long arms, so that fewer people have the right to carry concealed, and (3) the Second Amendment isn’t in the Constitution primarily so that Americans can hunt deer or protect their homes against burglars. As Eugene Volokh writes, it’s a tripwire. The American revolution began with colonial resistance against an attempt by their own government to disarm the colonists. We are supposed to be at least as well armed as the US Army.”

Not sure what ANY of that has to do with a bunch of jerks deciding to open carry ARs into a Chipotles.

I’m very well aware of the “ability to fight tyranny” foundation of the Second Amendment. Do you imagine that our founding fathers travelled en masse to get a cup of coffee or a lunch while encumbered with their long arms designed for war? Have any proof of any such thing?

In any case, we need not speculate in the instant case. The OCIYF! proponent are quite explicit about their reason for carrying ARs into Chipotle and Starbucks, as noted in my post, and it is NOT to be prepared to overthrow the government, nor even to defend themselves against criminal attack. If you missed it the first time, just scroll up, I’m too busy to repeat myself.

(Andrew Branca): “A person who hasn’t learned commonsense good manners and self-interest by the time they’re old enough to purchase firearms isn’t likely to do so thereafter.”
Do you expect “commonsense good manners” like screaming in ALL CAPS and calling people “jackass”, and “jerks” to “rationally change the minds” of open carry advocates?
If not, what did you intend with this essay?
(Andrew Branca): “Ask the “OCIYF!” crowd what their goal is and they’ll tell you it’s to “normalize” public attitudes toward the open carry of long guns in the casual course of running day-to-day errands. …How utterly stupid.”
(Me): “Consider the three guys in plaid with their rifles against the wall, eating breakfast at 0500 in a rural café on the opening day of deer season.”
(Andrew Branca): “Yes, why don’t we consider context.”
Yes, lets. Seems to me “normalize public attitudes” and “create ‘context’ in which open carry of long arms is routine” are pretty much the same thing.
How else would you recommend open carry advocates suppress the public’s reflexive micturition at the sight of firearms? Won’t the first civilians who exercise open carry in a jurisdiction that only recently relaxed restrictions differ systematically from the people who follow the crowd?

(Andrew Branca): “ … every time I see one of these OCIYF! ass hats damaging the gun rights of ordinary American citizens through their attention-whoring antics, I will call them out on it.”
Seems to me your point is that they’d get better results if they were civil. Right?

“Instead of taking a low-key, holstered-pistols-only approach that would serve more than adequately to assert their “right” to open carry, they instead escalate to the open carry of long guns…”

Except of course that open carry of handguns is not legal in Texas unless you are on your own property. Long guns are legal to open carry. You could have looked up the laws before writing your article (which I generally agree with).

“Except of course that open carry of handguns is not legal in Texas unless you are on your own property. Long guns are legal to open carry. You could have looked up the laws before writing your article (which I generally agree with).”

So what? It makes utterly no difference to my argument, which is that frightening law-abiding men, women, and children, and contesting the right of business owners to manage reasonably their businesses and properties is a LOSING proposition for gun rights.

If I “looked up the laws” for every irrelevant law to my post, I’d never get a post written.

“It makes utterly no difference to my argument, which is that frightening law-abiding men, women, and children, and contesting the right of business owners to manage reasonably their businesses and properties is a LOSING proposition for gun rights.”

Incorrect Andrew. Have you ever open carried or followed those who are? I see OC all the time here in my state and do not see the panic and fear you describe. Mostly, all I see are children asking questions. I see a few conversations about guns as a result of OC. I do not see people clearing out, calling 911 and so forth. This is easy to do: carry concealed, stay separate from the group and watch.

You massively overstate the fear levels for the purposes of agiprop–just like Moms Demand Action.

I don’t think its “overstating” at all, just because there are areas where it is more accepted doesn’t change the argument, because these yahoo’s are going to area’s where they know its gonna cause an up roar, that’s their entire point.

If their stated goal is to make open carry “more normalized” then what would be the point in going somewhere where it is largely accepted.

Oh, and a point about those gun racks, when we go in to a place to get some grub before we hit the stand, we leave the rifles in the darned truck, its called having manners.

(Smalltown): “Manners always matter, especially when trying to win people over to your point of view. They are a show of respect to those whom you wish to impress and prove that you appreciate being given their time and attention. People behaving the way Mr. Branca described demonstrate to me that they don’t really care what the public thinks of them and are simply doing it for their personal attention.”
We agree, here, about civility.
(Andrew Branca): “… jackass … utterly stupid …their fantasy vision…
(Andrew Branca): “I’ve owned and shot firearms since … I’ve actively engaged in firearms competition since I was … I’ve carried …I’ve been an NRA instructor … I’ve been an NRA Life Member … I think … I think … I think … I also think … I’ve described … If I’m in that Starbucks … my personal “threat radar” … As is my practice … my first move …”
We agree about that “personal attention” bit, too.
btw, Mr. Branca has a book to sell.

“We agree about that “personal attention” bit, too. btw, Mr. Branca has a book to sell.”

It’s always been a point of fascination to me that the modern internet tough guy treats authors as anti-semitics of the Middle Ages treated money-lenders.

Am I supposed to feel shamed because I’ve written a book? A best-selling book, might I add? A book with 98% 5-star rating on Amazon.com?

Am I supposed to feel shamed because I possess a knowledge and skill set that people are willing to freely compensate me for, such that I can support myself, my wife, my children?

Would you be happier if I sold no book, was on the dole, buying internet with an EBT card?

Yes, you dope, I have a book to sell. I work for a living. I’m fortunate enough that people sufficiently respect my work product that they’re willing to send some of their own hard-earned wages to me in exchange for that product.

And in 16 years of doing books, seminars, and speeches, I’ve never had a customer ask for a refund.

(Malcolm Kirkpatrick): ““We agree about that “personal attention” bit, too. btw, Mr. Branca has a book to sell.”
(Andrew Branca): ““It’s always been a point of fascination to me that the modern internet tough guy …
Says the person who wrote: “I’ve described my gun rights “cred.” If I’m in that Starbucks, and such an “OCIYF!” crowd strolls in, they’ve brightened themselves considerably on my personal “threat radar.” As is my practice any time such brightening occurs, my first move after having identified the threat is to assess imminence …”
(Andrew Branca): ““ … treats authors as anti-semitics of the Middle Ages treated money-lenders.‘”
There’s a fallacy of composition here: (1) Andrew Branca is an author. (2) Malcolm treats Andrew thus. (3) Therefore (???), Malcolm treats authors thus.
I hope the book is better argued.
(Andrew Branca): ““Am I supposed to feel shamed because I’ve written a book?”
No. You might, however, restrain yourself from so freely speculating about other people’s motives (e.g., “attention whoring”).
(Andrew Branca): ““ … A best-selling book, might I add? A book with 98% 5-star rating on Amazon.com?”
Congratulations. Seriously.
(Andrew Branca): ““Am I supposed to feel shamed because I possess a knowledge and skill set that people are willing to freely compensate me for, such that I can support myself, my wife, my children?”
No. You might exercise a little restraint in your correction of (what you see as) other people’s errors. I began this exchange with the comment that I agreed with you about people who ostentatiously carry lethal arms. I see nothing uncivil in my first comment. I observed that the public reaction to open carry would be a shrug in some context. You followed with: “Yes, why don’t we consider context.” And I did: “Yes, lets. Seems to me “normalize public attitudes” and “create ‘context’ in which open carry of long arms is routine” are pretty much the same thing.
How else would you recommend open carry advocates suppress the public’s reflexive micturition at the sight of firearms? Won’t the first civilians who exercise open carry in a jurisdiction that only recently relaxed restrictions differ systematically from the people who follow the crowd?”
That’s a practical question about the path from a social environment where firearms are rarely seen to a social environment where they are commonly seen. Where’s the incivility?
To which you responded: “You’re neither smart enough nor entertaining enough to be worth engaging with.”
You were saying something about civility and persuasion?
(Malcolm): ““Seems to me your point is that they’d get better results if they were civil. Right?
(Andrew Branca): “Seriously? You need Cliff’s Notes for that?“

2. We agree: civility matters. I asked earlier “Seems to me “normalize public attitudes” and “create ‘context’ in which open carry of long arms is routine” are pretty much the same thing. How else would you recommend open carry advocates suppress the public’s reflexive micturition at the sight of firearms” …than to carry openly?

3. Hawaii is (or was, until Peruta v. San Diego) a “may issue” State. The County Chiefs of Police make the determination who may and who may not carry concealed. There is no legal open carry of handguns or long arms by civilians outside one’s residence, one’s place of business, the range, or the hunting area. Permission to carry concealed is never granted. Effectively, civilians are (or were) forbidden to carry firearms outside their own property, hunting areas, target ranges, or in transit between these permitted locations. Suppose now that the Honolulu Chief of Police decides to respect the US and Hawaii Constitutions (and pigs fly). After ten years of guns on beach towels, no one will bat an eye, but how do we get from here to there? Someone will be the first to walk down Kalakaua Avenue with an AR-15. How will this NOT constitute “OCIYF”? Haven’t your criteria (“an activity, usually orchestrated among multiple participants, to openly carry firearms for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention to themselves, usually by means of frightening a populace unfamiliar with the sight or practice of open carry”) created a “heckler’s veto”?

“After ten years of guns on beach towels, no one will bat an eye, but how do we get from here to there?”

“Someone will be the first to walk down Kalakaua Avenue with an AR-15.”

You have narrowed the options for getting to comfort with guns to one and only one option. This is not how the real world works. For every problem there are literally hundreds of options to solve that problem. You are rationalizing your solution and discounting or ignoring all others.

Here is a possible solution to your Hawaii situation that isn’t OCIYF. You stated that it is currently legal to only have guns on your property. That means that those that want guns have guns and they leave them at home. Don’t you think that those gun owners talk to their friends about guns? Don’t you think that they may also talk to their co-workers about guns? I bet when someone at their job decides to get a gun then they know just who to go to to get information about gun ownership. That person could be an affable and trustworthy person, someone that you want to talk to about things that might cause you insecurity about guns. That person will do more for the gun movement than any of the fucktards that try to ram their gun rights down everyone’s throat. Truly not everyone wants to own a gun they have that right. They might have insecurity about guns but don’t you think having a respectable gun owner around might turn them around faster than some cocksucker walking down the beach with front facing fully loaded unsafe AR-15.

The day may come when Hawaii allows open carry and our respectable trustworthy gun owner whom everyone knows has a gun comes to work with his gun fully displayed. People that have never seen his gun before may be put on edge at first, but then they remember that the know him and he is safe. I see this all of the time where a pro gun person is being interviewed and at some point the interviewer will say something like “… but you seem like a responsible gun owner, but what about the idiots …” This video (VIDEO: Andrew Branca, Law of Self Defense, Interview on N24 German TV News) illustrates my point exactly.

After reading your exchanges with Mr. Branca, once I got over being blinded by your candle like insight and deafened by your blows at prose. I think my thoughts can be summed up best in a quote from the movie Billy Madison.

“what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room ‘(blog)’ is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

My experience witnessing homosexual parading (the organized/protest sort, not the “sashay to the salon” type parading) has been much different than Mr. Branca’s. My parents were delegates to a religious convention in my large Southern town which was sashay’ed/protested by a national homosexual group; the nice hardworking homosexuals loudly faked or actually performed sex acts, yelled in elderly folks faces, tried to surround them and intimidate them. I arrived to pick them up, and I am glad to this day that I didn’t do more than I did to move those backslashes away from my 70+ parents and their friends. Other events have unfolded similarly; I guess Branca attended the friendlier sashay events.

Nowadays, one of the homosexuals playing a homosexual on Modern Family says his show is a Trojan Horse (I know, Trojan etc…) intended for regular folk so they’ll think homosexual marriage is OK, that homosexuals are just good hard-working neighbors. If their lifestyles are so noble and pure, why the Trojan Horse approach? Why the Bernays/Adorno/Frankfurt School approach? I prefer to uncouple 2A issues from imaginary “civil rights”, whatever they are.

The “homosexual struggle” has nothing to do with concrete rights possessed by man as a matter of natural law, and its dumb to make any sort of comparison. Homosexuals know their lifestyle choices are disgusting and unnatural, and they overcome the shame they feel and receive by flaunting, bullying and shoving those choices into the public’s faces. It’s no less insulting than these strategically idiotic numbskulls sashaying about with rifles, trolling for their own pathetic share of the attention pie. The difference is,as noted by Branca, homosexuals use television very effectively to skew perceptions of reality, and these open carry idiots don’t. In the end, though -and, pun intended- the homosexual sashayers are doing far more societal damage than the long arm sashayers. Sodom and Gommorah, et al.

It is neither a win nor a loss. It does not have to be either, though many people in this culture are so simple minded that they believe “their team” must “win”.

The fact of the matter is that you cannot stop them from open carrying a long gun. Should you encourage legislatures to ban open carry (OC), you become an anti-gun rights activist. We all know that such laws will have other bad provisions attached, or others will soon follow.

Your continued whining about open carry is unbecoming. These people are exercising their right (and not the privilege of concealed carry). I would not do it in the same manner. Many gun owners, including Andrew Branca, are extremely critical of open carry. Doing so negates any say you have in how they engage in OC.

It is time for us to step and start guiding these people. This should have been turned into something more akin to a free speech rally of two. They should have dressed nicely and wore “Guns Save Lives” buttons. They should have handed pamphlets explaining what they were doing and why it was legal.

We gun owners can either help or be ignored. I would prefer to guide them such that open carry is not destructive to our cause.

Oops, I missed a sentence. The second to last paragraph should have read:

“It is time for us to step and start guiding these people. This should have been turned into something more akin to a free speech rally of two. They should have dressed nicely and wore “Guns Save Lives” buttons. They should have handed pamphlets explaining what they were doing and why it was legal. These steps would go a long way toward normalizing carry, minimizing disruptions (if any, and I watch for distruptions around groups of OC’ers) and would show others OC’ers a constructive way to carry their firearms.”

This very simple. When you bring up “property rights”, what you are really saying is “My say-so”. It is an immoral position to rank your “say so” over my life and my ability to defend myself against violent attack. Doing so means that person has no regard for life. Property can always be replaced, but life cannot.

“You keep waving around that people aren’t as afraid as everyone makes them out to be, you seem to have put yourself in a position where you know how everyone else feels, narcissists do this, are you one?”

Are you really that shallow? How about standing back from a group of open carriers? Have you tried that? When I do so, I do not see panic, 911 calls, running away or fearful looks. Body language is an indicator of emotional state and I do not see the indicators of either fight or flight.

“When you bring up “property rights”, what you are really saying is “My say-so”.”

Nope I am saying my property. My house, my car, my TV, my computer, my body. If I am on my property then I call the shots, just like when you visit your parents, they call the shots. And if they say you have an 10:00pm curfew well then you have 10:00pm curfew, otherwise they boot your ass out. 2A doesn’t exist on MY property, neither does 1A. Because if it did then I can come to your property and do any damn thing that I like, and at that point property rights become moot and the whole purpose of the Constitution is out the window.

Chipoltle is private property so is Starbucks so is Jack in the Box. If you say that you are pro 2A then you are saying I am pro property.

“It is an immoral position to rank your “say so” over my life”

Then if you are concerned about your life and protecting it then don’t go on the property of people that don’t allow you to defend your life. If you insist that they must allow you on their property then what other injustice must they endure in the name of “your” rights. This can just as easily be turned to say that you must quarter troops on your property or perform abortions on your property. Once again no property no Constitution.

“Are you really that shallow? How about standing back from a group of open carriers?”

Ok how about being on the inside of the restaurant when the OCer’s first arrive at it. How can you make a blanket statement that people aren’t panicked or fearful. The couple that just went out the other door because they were concerned, did you see them? How about the guy that went to the bathroom because he was scared? How can you possibly read the minds of the people in that place? And honestly if you asked anyone after the fact do you think they are going to tell you the truth. Mostly the people that were scared left. They just want to get away.

And how would you respond to the OCer’s showing up at the Mothers for WTFever meeting. Twenty armed people that don’t like you showing up at the parking lot of your meeting. Nothing says we respectfully disagree like a show of force in the parking lot.

“Body language is an indicator of emotional state and I do not see the indicators of either fight or flight.”

And you will never see the crime coming. As I have said multiple times before in previous posts, take a force on force class, maybe, just maybe you might get it.

Only an idiot would believe confrontation is how “leftist homosexual” behavior got “acceptable.” In reality it was endless years of those same leftist behaviors being demonstrated as normal and responsible (and decidedly NOT extreme) in daily television sitcoms.

But whatever.You want to believe that scaring the crap out of women and children with your open carry of AR’s in coffee shops is going to advance the cause of gun rights. I guess there’s nothing I can do to change your mind.

Just don’t cry about it when I call your kind petulant children when your efforts invariably fail, and in fact HARM gun rights.

What does the “level of fear” have to do with anything? If one person was disturbed and felt fearful enough to leave, then that was one to many.

Also, you want to say that Andrew is “overstating” the level of fear. Now I have a question; “Where you there?”

Just because it is more accepted in your location doesn’t mean that the same reaction is found everywhere. Andrew didn’t say that folks run screaming from their tables and our the doors. It obviously did cause some level of discomfort for someone otherwise there wouldn’t have been a statement from the business.

How is some dude walking through the front door of a restaurant with a forward facing single point sling, a magazine in, safety off and finger on the trigger, not frightening. I have a gun, and that would push my wtf button. Not mention that it is a long gun. Quick primer for those not in the know: Long gun > Handgun. Or in one word … kinetic energy.

You keep waving around that people aren’t as afraid as everyone makes them out to be, you seem to have put yourself in a position where you know how everyone else feels, narcissists do this, are you one?

Walking around as described is not the correct way to open carry. Do we have video of the incident that shows them carrying their rifles like that or do we have only the pose in the photo? A rifle slung at the side or rear is a safe rifle; the sling is like a holster for a handgun. My guess is that the rifles were slung and they posed like that for the photo.

There are many unanswered questions in my mind regarding this incident. What were the reactions of the people in the store? Many likely didn’t notice right away, or care. Were there 911 calls made? In the last big incident, the police insisted employees hid in the freezer, but the company’s director for security contradicted that statement. Photos also show smiling open carriers AND employees. Why would the police lie and the MSM parrot incorrect statements?

Agreed LSM will jump on anything to unhinge the lovers of peace, but these incidents are indeed unhinging.

Fatboy and grey shirt on right side of photo display guns with magazines. You are right we can only speculate on the actual way that they were carrying coming in, but if they are to lazy or ignorant to know that having a magazine in the gun is not helpful to not being threatening then I am going to make an educated guess that they didn’t come in with the guns slung over their back.

Also a long gun in an urban environment (other than a war zone) as a form of self defense is less than useless, so I guess that they were trying to make a point. So why even bother to load and front point carry a weapon that you are using to make a point, at that point why not make absolutely certain that there is no way that the weapon can fire, and that everyone except the absolutely least educated would know it.

I used to read everything you wrote, and directed many readers of other blogs to your coverage of the Zimmerman trial.

For you to react to a single comment making a legitimate point – that confrontational tactics have been repeatedly used to de-sensitize people to certain types of conduct – with nothing more than name calling and unsupported denial of the point being made tells me not to waste any more time on you.

There’s a someone acting like a petulant child here alright – and his name is Branca.

It doesn’t matter. They made a request. It is not a ban and it is still legal to carry at Chipotle. In Virginia, the signs have no force behind them. They have to ask the person carrying to leave; they’ll get a trespass charge if they refuse.

It’s odd that people who don’t even know you will step into a crosswalk in front of your moving vehicle, relying upon you to stop and not run them over. These same people see a trusted and well-liked neighbor with a gun and they flip out. They would trust that neighbor not to hit them with a vehicle, why would they think that same person would shoot them?

Some believe that upsetting the public by parading with firearms obviously, if non-threateningly, displayed, creates a bad impression of those who support firearms rights. In response, I say if people are alarmed by this, then it is they who must become accustomed to it. They have been conditioned by decades of anti-gun propaganda aimed at making the exercise of the right to arms problematic and threatening. Are they afraid when they see Muslims displaying outward symbols of their faith (full beards on the men and burkas on the women)? Yes, some people are afraid. Should Muslims be barred from restaurants for frightening the customers? It would never happen. Does it upset them that the local newspaper prints editorials that espouse opinions they find objectionable? Should the editorial writer be fired because he upset some readers? Should an aspect of a right wither and die merely because the public is unused to its exercise and finds it “objectionable”? What right might not be challenged for having been disused for a period of time? What right will we not sacrifice for fear of public opprobrium? The idea behind the protection of rights is that they are protected against those who find them objectionable. Rights not found objectionable by anyone don’t require protection.

If you’re not for all rights, you’re not for any of them; the fall of one leads to the fall of others. Those rights most reviled require the stoutest defense.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
Barry Goldwater (Karl Hess, speech writer)

I carry a hand gun everywhere I go. I live in a Constitutional carry state. More often than not I open carry. Carrying a properly holstered hand gun is one thing. It seems to me that open carrying a long gun is not carrying for protection but carrying to make a statement. I think the statement they are making is right but the way the are going about it wrong and actually hurts the case for open carry.
I feel the same way about it as I do about gay pride parades. I am a gay man but I don’t think that running around and making a spectacle out of yourself and purposefully trying to offend people is beneficial for any cause.

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